Dambuster beer advert leaves a bad taste

A LAGER commercial featuring a bronzed Briton beating foreign tourists to the best poolside spot was criticised yesterday for being anti-German.

The Carling Black Label advertisement, in which the Anglo-German deckchair dash is accompanied by the Dambusters theme tune, was also attacked for trivialising the heavy loss of life caused by the RAF bombing raid.

The criticism is contained in a ruling by the Independent Television Commission, which launched an investigation after receiving complaints from 33 ITV and Channel 4 viewers. But a spokeswoman for the German embassy in London dismissed the idea that Germans might find the commercial offensive, adding: 'I find it very amusing.'

In the advertisement, German holidaymakers look on as the British character sends his towel bouncing across the pool to land neatly on a deckchair - a parody of the Dambusters mission in which bouncing bombs destroyed a huge dam.

It was the second time Carling Black Label has been criticised for a Dambusters commercial. Restrictions were placed on an advert that featured a goalkeeper deflecting the bouncing bombs as though they were footballs.

An asthma sufferers' charity was reprimanded after its 'distressing' advertisement triggered off an attack in a man. It showed a representation of an asthma attack and then described the seriousness and extent of the disease. After complaints the National Asthma Campaign withdrew the commercial.